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Milton Friedman on Free markets and the price system

Perfect competition is a theoretical concept like the Euclidian line, which has no width or depth. Just as we’ve never seen that line there has never been truly free enterprise.
Interview with Milton Friedman
Interview, 1973, Playboy
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  1. The price system works so well, so efficiently, that we are not aware of it most of the time. We never realize how well it functions until it is prevented from functioning, and even then we seldom recognize the source of the trouble.
    Free to Choose
    Book, 1980, Ch. 1 "The Power of the Market", p. 14
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  2. At any rate, simple slogans like “The market will take care of it” or “noninterventionism” do not resolve the hard problems. We may very well agree on the direction we want to go in, but just how we’re going to go there and how far we’re going to go, that’s a much more difficult problem.
    Say 'No' to Intolerance
    Speech, 1991, Liberty, vol. 4, no. 6 (July 1991), p. 20
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  3. Exchange is truly voluntary only when nearly equivalent alternatives exist. Monopoly implies the absence of alternatives and thereby inhibits effective freedom of exchange.
    Capitalism and Freedom
    Book, 1962, Ch. 2, The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 28
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